2017 Beechcraft King Air accident at Tucson International Airport
Kaaz Beech 300 · The 2017 Beechcraft King Air accident at Tucson International Airport occurred on 23 January 2017
From Tucson International Airport (TUS) to General Ignacio L. Pesqueira International Airport (MMHO)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR17FA057
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- Event fatalities
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beech 300
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 300
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N385KA
- Operator
- Kaaz
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tucson International Airport (TUS), Tucson, AZTo General Ignacio L. Pesqueira International Airport (MMHO), Hermosillo
- Aircraft age
- About 32 years (built 1985)
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Initial climb
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
The 2017 Beechcraft King Air accident at Tucson International Airport occurred on 23 January 2017. On that day a Beechcraft Super King Air 300 business aircraft crashed when the pilot lost control of the aircraft shortly after takeoff. The pilot and the only passenger on board were killed. Toxicological examinations showed that the pilot had been under the considerable influence of multiple psychoactive substances (medications and drugs).
Accident sequence
On that day the aircraft was to operate a business flight from Tucson to Hermosillo in Mexico. The pilot was assigned runway 11L for takeoff. A witness observed the aircraft assume a steep pitch attitude after takeoff. At a height of 100 to 150 feet (approx. 30–45 metres), the aircraft had also begun to yaw to the left while maintaining the steep pitch attitude. The airspeed had decreased so much that the witness believed the aircraft would enter a stall at any moment. The next moment, the aircraft had rolled to the left over the left wing while the steep pitch attitude remained unchanged. Finally the nose of the aircraft had also dropped. The aircraft had then struck the airport grounds in an inverted attitude at 12:33 local time. Another eyewitness compared the aircraft's attitude before the crash with that attained when flying a barrel roll. After impact, the wreckage of the aircraft slid 650 feet (approx. 200 metres) across the airport grounds before striking a wall that was eight feet (approx. 2.43 metres) high.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The National Transportation Safety Board took over the investigation after the accident. The investigators were unable to find any technical anomalies in the aircraft. A toxicological examination of the pilot's remains eventually revealed a concentration of various psychoactive substances in his system, including marijuana, venlafaxine, amphetamine, clonazepam and pheniramine. Because of the manifold effects of the substances found, the investigators were unable to determine what specific effects the combination of substances in the captain's body might have had on his perception and judgement. They assumed that the pilot had been cognitively impaired by the substances and that this impairment had contributed to the accident. The investigators were unable to gain access to records regarding any neuropsychiatric conditions of the pilot and could therefore not determine whether and to what extent such conditions might have played a role in the accident. According to the investigators, a direct contributing factor to the accident was that the pilot had increased the angle of attack beyond the critical level after takeoff, whereupon a stall occurred from which the King Air could no longer be recovered.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall einer Beechcraft King Air auf dem Tucson International Airport 2017” (revision 243778118, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
NTSB narrative
The pilot and the passenger departed on a cross-country, personal flight in the airplane that the operator had purchased the day before the accident. Shortly after takeoff, after reaching an altitude of about 100 to 150 ft above the runway in a nose-high pitch attitude, the airplane rolled left to an inverted position as its nose dropped, and it descended to terrain impact on airport property, consistent with an aerodynamic stall.
Postaccident examination of the accident site revealed propeller strike marks separated at distances consistent with both propellers rotating at the speed required for takeoff and in a normal blade angle range of operation at impact. Both engines exhibited rotational scoring signatures that indicated the engines were producing symmetrical power and were most likely operating in the mid-to upper-power range at impact. The engines did not display any pre-impact anomalies or distress that would have precluded normal engine operation before impact. No evidence was found of any preexisting mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation of the airplane.
Toxicology testing revealed the pilot's use of multiple psychoactive substances including marijuana, venlafaxine, amphetamine, pseudoephedrine, clonazepam, and pheniramine. The wide variety of psychoactive effects of these medications precludes predicting the specific effects of their use in combination. However, it is likely that the pilot was impaired by the effects of the combination of psychoactive substances he was using and that those effects contributed to his loss of control. The investigation was unable to obtain medical records regarding any underlying neuropsychiatric disease(s); therefore, whether these may have contributed to the accident circumstances could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack during takeoff, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's impairment by the effects of a combination of psychoactive substances.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Flugunfall einer Beechcraft King Air auf dem Tucson International Airport 2017
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 243778118 · 2024-04-05 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q104176938
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record WPR17FA057
- Event ID
- 20170123X71328
- Case number
- WPR17FA057
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Flugunfall einer Beechcraft King Air auf dem Tucson International Airport 2017" (page 11549088, revision 243778118), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case WPR17FA057 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record WPR17FA057: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record WPR17FA057
- Map position
- NTSB record WPR17FA057: NTSB API eventLatitude/eventLongitude
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record WPR17FA057: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record WPR17FA057: operated under Part 91: General Aviation
- Fatalities
- NTSB record WPR17FA057: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record WPR17FA057: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "2017 Beechcraft King Air accident at Tucson International Airport" and NTSB case WPR17FA057, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.